Status of this Memo

This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

1. INTRODUCTION SECTION

This document is a description of the Enhanced Trivial File Transfer Protocol (ETFTP). This protocol is an experimental implementation of the NETwork BLock Transfer Protocol (NETBLT), RFC 998 [1], as a file transfer application program. It uses the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), RFC 768 [2], as its transport layer. The two protocols are layered to create the ETFTP client server application. The ETFTP program is named after Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP), RFC 1350 [3], because the source code from TFTP is used as the building blocks for the ETFTP program. This implementation also builds on but differs from the work done by the National Imagery Transmission Format Standard [4].

This document is published for discussion and comment on improving the throughput performance of data transfer utilities over Internet Protocol (IP) compliant, half duplex, radio networks.

There are many file transfer programs available for computer networks. Many of these programs are designed for operations through high-speed, low bit error rate (BER) cabled networks. In tactical radio networks, traditional file transfer protocols, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and TFTP, do not always perform well.